The finance department has entered into a $32,000 contract with an external consultant to provide advice on how it should engage other external consultants who also provide advice to government, in a move that has been slammed as a “laughable scenario”.

The contract has been compared to an episode of the ABC satire Utopia and as an example of the public service’s reliance on external expertise, even as the federal government tries to save money and do more work in-house.

The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, has confirmed Simon Longstaff, the chief executive of the Ethics Centre, has been hired to help the department decide how to best engage with consultancy firm PwC Australia and its new spin-off company, Scyne.